BioShock PC Hands-on

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We visit the garden of Arcadia in Rapture with a keyboard and mouse as weapons.

By Dan Adams

We've already expressed the excitement and horror of suddenly finding yourself crashed in the open ocean with only a lone foreboding tower rising from the blackness of the deep as salvation. We did so while delving into the various aspects of BioShock's strange nature as a first-person shooter including the various plasmids, tonics, and weapons that will help you survive in the underwater circus of despair that is the fallen utopia of Rapture. If you want to know many of the basics ideas behind BioShock, we highly recommend visiting this earlier article outlining the first couple of levels that introduce the various techniques of survival while setting the stage for what could be one of the most original and satisfying fictional worlds we've seen in gaming to date. While we spent a little time familiarizing ourselves with the controls in these earlier levels, we spent most of our time in the lush section of the underwater city of Rapture dedicated to all things plants known as Arcadia. And yes, we did this in the PC version of BioShock, a version that's not simply a mere port for all of its interface changes and slight mechanical differences. Be forewarned that this preview presents minor story spoilers in the sections about Arcadia so if you'd rather keep the surprise of visiting Rapture on your own schedule, go ahead and skip past the "Welcome to Arcadia" section for more info on some different plasmids, the crafting system, weapons upgrades, and PC specific info.

Irrational was concerned about people thinking the game was linear because of the early levels. These, according to Irrational's Ken Levine, were created to give players at least a tiny bit of direction while introducing some of the bizarre facets of the underwater world of Rapture. How plasmids are equipped and function, the use of eve, hacking security, weapon use, and the nature of the various inhabitants are all laid out for you to follow without feeling lost. Because they wanted to present ideas in a certain format and order, they felt it better to make early levels linear in nature. We can tell you from experience that these first levels absolutely help. Simply jumping into later levels is like falling into a blistery meat grinder. When we finally swapped into the fourth level of Arcadia, we were grateful for our sessions in an easier location.

Welcome to Arcadia, Time to Die We were able to wander to and fro and even needed to access a map to find our way around the lush labyrinth of Arcadia. Backtracking was pretty common and there were several routes around the very green area. While the map in this level wasn't Oblivion huge or anything, there were definitely more than a few areas to traverse to find all of the necessary components to piece together the Lazarus Vector.

Upon arrival to Arcadia, the felonious Andrew Ryan is there to greet you with his dastardly plot to suffocate you by destroying the city's oxygen supply. Arcadia just happens to hold the lion's share of the oxygen producing trees needed for Rapture to survive as a whole. Seeing his opportunity to destroy you while potentially destroying plenty of other inhabitants as well he begins gassing the plants with a deadly mist. Your only ally Atlas quickly spouts the location of a botanist in the zone that can reverse the effects using a substance known as the Lazarus Vector.

After reaching the lab and talking to the woman over the com, she requests that you retrieve some specific flowers needed for the concoction which can be found in a flooded garden. As you might expect, it's a little more difficult than simply frolicking through an open field picking daisies and setting a picnic. Unfortunately for you, once you retrieve the flowers and bring them back to your new lady friend, she's killed by Ryan. While managing to provide a clue that allows further progression in the level, your potential ally is most definitely removed from the picture. After some simple puzzles allow for you to figure out the rest of the formula to save the day, it means traveling back out into the rest of Arcadia, collecting ingredients while dodging enemies, and then participating in a knock-down drag-out fight with Ryan's minions while the Lazarus Vector is dispersed. While we didn't reach the fight ourselves, we did see it demoed for us and it looked like one hell of a crunch.